


3h26min

by orphan_account



Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Late at Night, M/M, Smoking, so much gross fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2437661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The quiet (and not so quiet) hours of the overlap between the dead of night and morning, a new relationship stemming from a former friendship, Rin and Makoto praising the other in their own way, but with a lot more kissing than they're used to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3h26min

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for Rin's tattoos are completely and totally drawn from [this amazing fanart](http://butleronduty.tumblr.com/post/95258676579/rin-looking-very-pg-13-in-his-sakura-and-shark).
> 
> Apologies for how gross and fluffy the two are, though in my defense, Actual Perfect Sunshine Boyfriend Makoto and Romantic Idealist Gross Rin would be the absolute worst in their honeymoon stage.
> 
> I listened to a lot of Explosions in the Sky while writing this, if you need good music for the tone :)

Rin is a champion, metallic in the way he smiles and the medals (from Nationals, from three events in the Olympics) that warm against his chest.

Rin is a charmer, an icon in the making. There’s a way about him that has viewers, both rabid and casual alike, entranced by him, the way he smirks at the camera when it pans over him pre-race, headphones swallowing his ears, or how he knows how he looks when he gets out of the pool, water slipping down all the right places.

He’s a human that shines as brightly as a god through his own hard work and skill, and when his time comes to an end, his bones will become whatever material stars are made of (Makoto’s astronomy knowledge faded after his required course during his first year at university), drawn out of slightly parted lips and burst out into the skies as a constellation of the boy who did with the best he had, and damn right, did it _well_.

Rin is also no longer Makoto’s friend.

Technically.

Rin is in his bed, in the Iwatobi apartment inherited from his grandmother two years ago, his second home when he transferred schools on a whim a decade ago, but is now naked, spent, with that metallic smile, hair damp and clinging to his face through sweat and heat. His arms, sleeved in ink and ending with fingernails cleanly dipped in black, serve as an anchor behind him with his palms on the mattress, chest heaving slowly as it returns to its regular state.

And when Makoto runs a hand through his own hair tainted with sweat and heat, equally naked, equally spent, he looks up at Rin in wonder and awe, not only because of what he is and how incredible he is, but how it’s already been almost eight days of this and it still feels the first.

Rin lifts himself off of Makoto, continues to straddle him, but leans forward, thumbs lining the bone under Makoto’s eyes as he kisses him warm and slow.

They have all the time it seems, with the rest of the world soundly asleep, dreaming no doubt about escapes and desires. Makoto notes that he has no need to dream about neither or, especially now, because he has the promise of at least three schools wanting to take him as a swim coach when he graduates, a university swim team that reminds him that he’s good, he’s good at something that intimidated him and scared him, not just with skill, but the realization that he can do so much more than he thinks. 

He has friends, ones with bonds that are as natural as rippling water like Haru, or ones that are the burst of juice from a hard candy that explodes when biting down, like Nagisa. He has ones that remind him he’s not alone in taking care of others but forgetting what it’s like to do so for yourself, like Sousuke, and ones that tell him that it’s never too late to form these same sorts of relationships like his peers on the swim team.

And he has Rin, Rin in a way that he never expected to, but can now say he’s the only one to look at Rin beyond the incredible friend, loyal and grateful, beyond the snowballing celebrity with a victory not only in charm and smile, but ones that come with skill and rubbing the skin raw in effort. He can look at him and see what he’s like in the milliseconds leading up to a kiss, how he looks relaxed (for once) when his cheek is cupped under tanned, tired skin.

It’s a shame that Makoto has to shatter this closed off comfort confined to their bed, but he wordlessly nudges Rin’s thigh with his hand to tell him to get off. He swears he can hear Rin give a low growl in response, but obliges anyway.

Makoto gets up to throw away the condom, returns to bed so that he’s facing Rin, the way the silver moonlight and the hazy ochre streetlights mix and bend through the window to curve around his face, down his cheekbones, light up his smile.

Then Rin speaks, the first real noise from either since they finished and the first real break in the bubble of the nighttime.

“I’m hungry.”

Makoto continues to look at Rin and brushes the lone strand of hair falling down the slope of his nose, tucks it behind his ear. He nuzzles into his neck and replies into his skin, “Do you want me to grab something from the kitchen?”

“There’s no snacks here. I want snacks.” Rin shifts and gets up, makes his way out of the bed, rummages through the pile of clothes on the floor. He looks back at Makoto and smiles, “There’s a convenience store a few streets over. Do you want anything?”

“What? Rin, it’s late.” Makoto follows his boyfriend to the makeshift closet and laughs, picking up what looks like the sweatshirt when he came over three days ago, left behind only when he remembered that his family was invited to a family friend’s for an early Christmas dinner and grabbed the first item of clothing he could as he ran out the door. It was an awkward conversation when Ren and Ran looked at him and lost it at the too-tight cashmere sweater that was well out of his price range, pointed out when his mother raised an eyebrow and casually mentioned that she saw an advertisement for it in her fashion magazine, modeled by none other than Makoto’s friend Rin with a couple other of his Olympic teammates.

“Yeah.” Makoto had chuckled. “Friend. It looks good on him. Can you, uh, please let me get more rice?”

But that’s the thing about Rin. He’s magnetic, with a force too strong to resist, and the only person who could get through to Makoto, to challenge him, to push him beyond all that is familiar to him. He’s the tug, the spark to a flame that only Makoto can continue on his own, but he can’t do so without a catalyst, one who just needs words like:

“We should make a relay!”

“Why the fuck did you give up so easily?”

“If you want to kiss me now, just do it, damnit.”

Makoto smiles, takes two steps closer to Rin. “Okay, but only because it’s close by and convenient.”

“It should be, I mean, it’s only part of its name after all.” Rin hops into his sweats - a pair of black joggers that cinch several centimeters above his ankles. 

“Shut up.” Makoto replies, pulling the loose strand of hair falling between Rin’s eyes in jest before kissing him and zipping up Rin’s sleeveless teal hoodie for him. His eyes draw to Rin’s neck, naked, missing the shark tooth pendant that shrunk as he grew, now adorned over the much broader neck that belongs to Sousuke, a memento for him to remember his best friend by when the latter left for Australia a second time.

“Wow, feisty Makoto. You know how much I love pushing your buttons.” Rin mocks when Makoto lets go and runs his hands up and down Rin’s bare arms, but only to snake over his shoulders to grab the large grey hood and pulls it over Rin’s eyes.

“Damn it!” Rin’s smile pokes out under the hood, alone and sinister when he pushes Makoto back on the bed, mattress cushioning his fall.

“Really, another round Rin? I thought you were hungry.” He laughs when Rin chucks Makoto’s pair of loose, comfy jeans and Rin’s own Olympic jacket at him. It fits better than the cashmere sweater earlier that week - a size too big because of Rin’s preference for oversized clothing - and it’s startlingly white against Makoto’s darker skin, smells like Rin’s cologne, detergent, and the permanent stain of chlorine coursing like blood through the fibers.

Rin tears off the hood - ruffling his sexed-up hair even mores - and pouts. “I was. Hurry up Makoto, I’m hungryyyy.”

“Fine, but only because you begged.” Makoto sticks his tongue out and scrambles into his clothes, grabs his digital watch and glasses before following an already vanished Rin down the stairs and into the foyer.

“I can’t believe you’re craving food now, at…” Makoto glances down at his old watch as he fastens it over his wrist, “3:32 in the morning.”

Makoto’s breath comes out in bursts of fine white wisps even in the mild December night when they step outside, unamused when Rin responds as he locks the door, “It’s the jetlag.”

“Sydney is only two hour aheads of here, Rin, and you’ve already been back here for almost two weeks.”

“Details.” Rin waves his hand as he passes by.

Makoto takes a step forward to follow (he’s always following), but his body jolts instead with the sharp tug on his hand as Rin leads him out onto the street and pulls him to match his hasty pace.

3:30AM is black and gold and a rich navy, brilliant in the way that it drapes over the homes that line the street and the way they’ve been dipped in ink. One in every ten or so windows is lit, peeking through drawn curtains, a giveaway that Makoto and Rin aren’t the only ones still awake. Makoto wonders what they’re up to, maybe a teenager on their desk glued to the computer screen, maybe a parent checking on their crying newborn, maybe another couple doing what Rin and Makoto were doing just twenty minutes before.

“Pretty.” Rin doesn’t hold Makoto’s hand when they make their way onto the sidewalk, instead, clasps both firmly with both of his own after giving a quick flick to Makoto’s cartilage piercing so it gives a coy wink under the star and moonlight, quickly walks backward so they’re on the street, the empty, vast, dangerous street. “It sparkles here.” He tries to explain.

“Rin, there could be cars coming.” Makoto argues, but he knows it’s a lost cause, and the words feel forced when they come out, like he truly doesn’t mean them as they break into the air. It shows instead in his laugh that follows, the way he brushes his hair behind his ear, letting a finger trail along the hoop as it slides past before quickly returning his hand back to Rin’s own.

“I don’t care. They’d totally stop for two very, very attractive guys.” Rin continues to drag Makoto down, waving his arms back and forth to a song that only seems to be playing in his head. Makoto pretends to know it, tries to imagine what sort of intense, familiar beat is bouncing around in Rin’s head.

Instead, he can only watch as they weave in and out of streetlights to moonlight changes the colors on Rin’s tattoos, from bright to dark, as the cherry blossoms go from a warm champagne to a muted rose, the sharks at the ends of his arms jumping into the sunrise before falling back into the deep, dark ocean. When there’s no light, the branches that hold the flowers shift, spindly and frightening, like unknown terrors that lurk in the shadows. But Makoto’s seen those terrors wrap around his back when Rin pulls him close to his chest to drive him in deeper, like he wants Makoto’s weight to crush him into the mattress. He’s felt those terrors under his fingertips, his lips, and knows they belong to a boy - a man - who’s the same, and is reminiscent of the water: intimidating, scary even, but beautiful, and it reminds Makoto that sometimes, terrors aren’t worth getting frightened over.

Rin lets go of one hand and spins around so he’s next to Makoto, rests his head on Makoto’s shoulder as he pulls him in tighter. “You know, I’ve taken you guys to this store before. Back when we were younger and you guys would come visit?”

Makoto looks straight ahead of the tar paths, knows them well after living in the cozy town for his entire life up until he moved to Tokyo due to the small number of roads that intersect and weave within each other, but it isn’t until Rin’s words that the streets ahead of him become even more familiar. He recalls Rin and Haru racing ahead of him down the pavement, Nagisa not too far behind, all three coated with new sweat to make up for the old from all the jumping around in Rin’s room.

And so he laughs. “Like the time we all went to go get sodas after our ‘concert?’”

Rin groans into Makoto’s shoulder and mumbles into his own jacket. “Why is that your first connection with that? Don’t you dare mention who the audience was.”

“The stuffed animals? Your stuffed animals?”

“Makotooooooo.” Rin whines, and it’s adorable.

Makoto smiles into Rin’s hair, laces their fingers tighter, and they reminisce.

He finally convinced Rin to ride on his bike with him that day, and they got there half an hour earlier than Haru and Nagisa, because Nagisa wanted to run with Haru like always, do his best to try and keep up. Makoto remembers zooming towards Rin’s music collection - one passion of his that he had yet to find someone to connect with over - and grinning madly when he saw so many that he not only recognized, but _enjoyed_ , many that he had sampled in the music store in the mall and the few he had in his own collection.

Makoto remembers taking one of the CDs out of its thick plastic cases and running to Rin, telling him he loved this band and Rin, amazing boy that he was (amazing man he grew up to be), jolted to his miniature stereo, and placed the disc in. He had frozen in his brash, impulsive move, apologizing immediately, but Rin had only barked back in impatience, “Why haven’t you pressed play yet?”

(“Do you know how excited I was that I finally met someone else with great preference in music? Do you know how shitty Sousuke and Kisumi’s tastes were and still are?”

“If I recall correctly, when I visited you to go over joint practice meetings in third year, you had Sousuke’s MP3 on the speaker while you were doing your homework.”

“No, it was because he was in the bathroom when you came and he left it on.”

“I thought he had gone to get ice cream with Kou and was out for the afternoon?”

“Shut up.”)

The first song was bass heavy, the volume cranked to near maximum as the sound of electric guitars and drums bounced off the walls. Makoto and Rin looked at each other, grinned, and mere seconds later, Rin was on his bed, bouncing up and down playing on an invisible guitar, Makoto jumping on the plush eggplant rug on his matching invisible drums.

It was only after the first song did Rin leave their duo performance and made Makoto go solo while he ran to his bed and rearranged the sea of stuffed animals into perfect, neat little lines so they were all facing their “stage.” They spent the next three songs of the album headbanging and switching from air instruments to microphones, yelling under the guise of singing just inches away from each other as they continued their performance. The sun outside was just getting ready to rest for the evening and no doubt Haru and Nagisa were set to arrive soon, but Makoto’s heartbeat was thumping against his chest, and his mouth was set in a stupid grin in how much he was having fun, having fun with Rin and his ball of energy.

(“And Haru and Nagisa both came in when we were really getting into it, right?”

“Please, we were into it the entire time. And Nagisa jumped up and down and raced over to join us, wanting to be included in our band. He was like this little puff of blond hair, it was adorable.”

“You totally just said Nagisa was adorable.”

“Was. He was eleven and would listen to whatever I said and it was cute. I never implied that I think he’s still adorable.”

“I never suggested it. You totally brought that up on your own.”)

Haru, on the other hand, blinked at the spectacle before him with an eyebrow perfectly crafted to the ideal judgmental raise. His arms were crossed as his eyes flicked between the trio and the rows of stuffed animals, where the miniature whale shark had lost balance and toppled over, the purple bear in the row behind and two animals over backwards.

And that’s when Rin broke away and ran to Haru, grinning maniacally as he pulled him towards the other two, ignoring the “Let me go!” and “Why are you so annoying?” and eventually giving in with an eyeroll. Makoto couldn’t help but laugh at how Rin kept pestering Haru to open up his arms and ended up flopping his shoulders back and forth like a fish, but he started smiling when Rin started laughing and pointed out the aquatic animal metaphor and started to loosen up. 

The four of them collapsed to the floor by the time the album, ended for a few seconds, and restarted, and to no one’s surprise, it was Rin who jumped up like he hadn’t been using all the energy in his body for the past forty-five minutes and told them they should get ice cream before it got too dark.

The sunset memory of the four on the road following his idea with the promise of sweets and sugar darkens, pulls Makoto and Rin back to the present day where the sky isn’t painted with gold-plated pastels, but the quiet sort of blues and blacks that remind Makoto of Haru and Sousuke.

“God, I can’t believe that was ten years ago.” Makoto hums in agreement, his hands now crossed over his arms to preserve his own warmth. He squints a little when he sees the growing light of a harsh white, sticking out against the golds of the streetlamps and silvers of the moon and stars. 

“Finally!” Rin lets go of Makoto’s hand and briskly walks up the two steps that lead to a tiny porch, lets the tinny bell go off as he rushes into the store.

The clerk gives them a sleepy stare when the bell jingles, eyebrow raised in annoyance and disbelief that someone actually took advantage of the 24 hour service, goes back to her cell after a quick quirk of an eyebrow. The four rings on her one hand run through her hair, amber and tossed into a loose low ponytail with the bangs falling out.

She couldn’t be more than a couple years older than Makoto and Rin, but Makoto can’t help but wonder if she’s a skeptic, wonders if they’re stupid teenagers who got too drunk and have lost all perception of time, or sleepy college kids who haven’t realized that they’re technically on break and have no need to worry about academics and all-nighters, something Makoto and Rin have both become well familiar with, proven by their late night Skype calls to each other (and Sousuke and Haru with Rin too), for the past couple of years.

The lights have adjusted for the nighttime so they don’t feel blinding when they transition for nothing but moon and streetlight to loud fluorescents, dimmed low so they’re coated in halogen blues and the hum of white noise. They don’t have much room to move; the size of the store itself couldn’t be that much bigger than Makoto’s living room in his tiny student apartment back at school, and most of the space is taken up by the bulky shelves that create aisles with little room to maneuver in between.

Makoto spends his time in the boxed sweets section (needing a good embarrassingly few minutes walking around the store to find it) while Rin heads over to the fridge, tapping his finger against his leg to the static noise of what sounds a little like something from the Top 40 if Makoto tried to listen hard enough. He can’t decide which sounds the most appealing, picking up one bright red box from one brand before putting it down and picking up the blue, wondering if he’s in the mood for chewy or crunchy, soft or hard, and maybe he should try the ones dipped in orange flavored chocolate. 

He jumps when he hears an impatient “Makoto, are you done?” before eventually deciding on a small package shortbread biscuits coated in milk chocolate and responds, “Almost!”

He’s kind of in the mood for some candy too, so he walks two aisles down to pick up a bag of gummies. His first real sign of sleepiness kicks in when his waist has somehow missed the large, protruding freezer by the now closed kitchen and his hip stings in pain.

Makoto starts to curse, but there’s a dive in his stomach, churned by nostalgia and a distraction from the physical pain, when he sees the contents within. A pair of soda popsicles, easy to cleanly divide and share with your other half, a strawberry shortcake concoction that immediately tingles the tastebuds. A simple cup of vanilla, plain, but not too terribly sweet.

Makoto smiles and picks up the last one despite the cool temperature outside, and after a quick stop to get his candies and a bottle of room-temperature water, he walks over to meet up with Rin.

Rin’s already at the counter, and the clerk takes him in, simply gives a shrug and grabs a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from behind her, as if she doesn’t realize that he’s a gold-medaled Olympian or a golden boy, whether it be due to the late hour or she has no interest in awesome sporting events (Makoto can’t even fathom the idea of the latter).

“Here.” Makoto walks up to Rin and drops his chin onto his shoulder, reaches around him to drop his box with the rest of Rin’s things and lets his hand go down to lightly hold Rin’s waist.

Rin goes still under him and his neck gets a little warmer, but Makoto feels his body move under a muted chuckle.

The clerk gives a quirk of the corner of her lips, as if it’s enough to equivalate to a Cheshire’s smile, and says, quite simply, “You guys are cute.”

The silence in the store that follows is thick and warm, warm and redder on Rin’s face as he just stares back in embarrassment. Right, these situations are Makoto’s forte.

“Oh. Thank you -” Makoto begins, but is cut off with a “I know, right? Have you seen him?”

“Rin!”

Rin waves a goodbye to the clerk, tells her to keep the change, and pulls Makoto out with one hand, flimsy black plastic bag in the other.

“Here,” Rin takes out the small packet of chocolate covered biscuits and shoves them into Makoto’s chest, “god, those are so gross.”

Makoto could ignore that, could decide to pay attention to separating the cardboard flaps and pulling open the plastic lining, mixing with Rin doing the same with the carton of cigarettes. But instead, he takes the bait,“You’re so mean for insulting my snack choice. It really hurts.”

“Just looking at it gives me cavities.”

Makoto dramatically rolls his eyes as he takes a large bite out of one of the biscuits, licks the small stain on his thumb where the chocolate melted, and replies, “At least try it before insulting it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Are you sure? Here.” And before Rin can give another retort back, just as he opens his mouth to do so, Makoto closes the gap between them, pressing crumbs from his lip to Rin’s, grossly kissing him with the intent of nothing short of embarrassing Rin, because there’s nothing better than watching Rin get flustered. 

(And that’s one of the greatest things about dating a friend. The familiarity is always there, the shift from friendship to romance as natural, but so beautifully unexpected as the kiss of springtime air after a harsh winter. Makoto has always loved embarrassing and teasing Rin, quips of childhood nicknames here, a reminder about how much he loves cats there, but now, he gets to learn how Rin reacts when embarrassed not by one of the few friends he allows to do so without trying to bite their head off, which he very well could, but by his boyfriend.)

And Rin isn’t disgusted when he lets go, instead, that dangerous smile that Makoto knows (and loves, has always loved), and runs into the middle of the street.

“I AM DATING TACHIBANA MAKOTO.” Rin raises his hands into the sky, unlit cigarette in one, bag of spicy wasabi peas with its contents inside bouncing in the other.

Makoto chokes on his biscuit, runs forward and does what he can to shut Rin up and covers his mouth with his hand. “Rin!”

Rin simply pulls down Makoto’s hand from his lips, replaces it with Makoto’s own lips instead, quickly lets go and yells, “I’M DATING ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS AND IT’S AMAZING!”

“People are sleeping!”

“Please, like they’re going to wake up. And uh, I kinda want everyone to hear. Kinda the point of yelling about how I have an amazing boyfriend.”

“Uh…”

“HE’S CARING AND STRONG IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD AND IS SO. FUCKING. HOT.”

Makoto’s stomach drops as Rin continues his chants, his words curling, taking shape into the white puffs that leave his mouth. Quiet compliments, whether they be under the covers or exchanged over drinks are one thing, but for Rin to be proudly announcing things about Makoto that Makoto himself doesn’t believe… 

“AND HE’S GREAT IN BED AND HAS A HUGE D-”

“OH MY GOD.” Makoto does what can only be the most logical solution in this situation and tackles Rin off the street and into a patch of grass, most likely a garden in the warmer half of the year.

And instead of retreating into anger, a twitch of the eye or a bark like Makoto’s expecting, Rin shakes his head, tips his forehead up so it’s just touching Makoto’s, and simply says, “Hey.”

“Oh my god.” Is all Makoto can repeat, but this time the words are soft, like the thin sheet of snow separating Rin from the frozen grass, all powder and loose, no doubt warm as they fan over Rin’s mouth.

He says it like the words are wheezed out, like he’s the one who’s been tackled to the ground, but instead, it’s because Rin’s words, the way he looks up at Makoto and smiles.

And Makoto sees the smile of a twelve-year-old boy who bounces towards his friends, eager to share his idea of forming a relay team.

He sees the smile of a seventeen-year-old boy biting down on his National medal, the first of many, as he stands on the podium with a fist in the air.

He sees the smile of an older man, one who doesn’t exist now, but maybe a decade from now, rolling over in the early hours of the morning, brushing back Makoto’s hair, trails down his arm out of pure muscle memory, like he’s been doing it nearly every day for the past ten years. 

Rin reaches the hand that isn’t holding the cigarette out and rests his thumb on Makoto’s lip. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Makoto nods, so slowly, before getting up and retrieving the plastic bag a couple of meters away from Rin. Luckily, nothing fell out - Rin’s peas are already secured back in his hands and everything else looks reasonably safe, but Makoto still keeps a tight hold on it in case he gets the urge to fling himself at his boyfriend again anytime soon.

They start walking again; Makoto takes out the new lighter and his own cigarette from the pack, keeping it secure in between his teeth as he clicks his thumb against the metal and holds the now lit lighter to Rin’s cigarette, no doubt already punctured where it sits in his mouth once more.

Rin nods in thanks when the flame sparks the end, sizzling as a hot orange crinkles the paper away.

Makoto smiles and lights up his own, sighs in bliss and tips his head back as he breathes the smoke in and he can feel his shoulders relax; from what, he’s not sure as he exhales the smoke, but they’re always aching from worry and anxiety, have been for years, and Makoto’s just started to notice that in the select moments he’s started to think about himself.

Before Rin can take a drag, Makoto silently turns to him, pushes him with his free hand until they’ve stopped under a streetlight, washed in the warm cone of light.

“Rin?” He hears his voice, feels it husk under his chest as the lack of sleep braids with the smoke and comes out as gravel grinding into dust.

“Hm?”

Rin’s eyes are laser-focused, still in concentration and figuring out what Makoto wants when the latter takes another deep, slow, seductive draw from his cigarette, like the split second when his palm crashes into the pool’s wall and he jerks his head up to look at the scores in desperate anticipation. Makoto can’t help but smile when Rin’s breath shakes, like the way he does just before he unravels undone under Makoto’s touch when he holds their lips this time just a millimeter apart, doesn’t kiss him as he releases the thick smoke down Rin’s throat.

Makoto doesn’t know if it’s his way of pouring all of his worries into Rin, to finally let him hear them instead of in pocket sized confessions that Rin’s just started to get out of Makoto, the only one, really, in the past couple of years.

He doesn’t know if it’s his way of pouring his wants into Rin, how he could do this forever, how he still wants to, how a little part of him _knows_ that it will.

But all he can ask, can smile, is “Good?”

Rin doesn’t say anything, lets his eyes flutter shut as he takes in Makoto’s smoke, doesn’t dare move away as he takes a deep inhale, taking as much of Makoto in as he can.

He does that dangerous smile of his again and replies with his eyes still softly shut and his eyelashes so prettily pressed together, “You’re making it really hard not to start screaming about how fucking incredible you are again. And so, so hot without even realizing it.”

Makoto can only laugh and pull away, winks when he puts the trimming stick right in front of his mouth. “You should start smoking now, Rin, I think it’s almost halfway done and you haven’t even had a drag yet.”

Rin groans and presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, as if trying to avoid looking at Makoto, “Fuck.”

They pass by a park a good half hour later, one stitched with benches in neat lines, repainted in a neat maroon.

There’s a bench that sits right next to a weeping willow, and darker red under the pale green droopy branches, and of course, of course, Makoto and Rin naturally find themselves under there, no reason why needed to be exchanged.

Rin pops his tab of soda with one hand and waits for Makoto to do the similar when he twists off the cap before gulping a few sips down.

“I thought soda wasn’t allowed in your diet?” Makoto passively comments as he stares out into the lightening sky, closer to Haru’s eyes, he notes.

He feels Rin shrug next to him, another sip, a reply, “I don’t think I should be smoking either,” and he rummages in the bag to grab another cigarette from the carton.

Makoto mimics his action, let’s them soak in like the smoke into his lungs.

“Have I ever told you how amazing you are?” Rin asks.

It takes a second for Makoto to recover from the sudden question, but he does so by inhaling too much smoke and coughing into his arm.

Smooth.

He’s still not used to praise, praise from anyone, not his professors where they seem automatic, or Nagisa and Kou and Rei, or Sousuke and Haru, where it feels valuable given their skill. 

Especially still not from Rin, not ever, where he always has, secretly still, holds them in the utmost regard.

“Samezuka was insane, I mean, I was _Momo’s_ captain, but at least I had others keep me somewhat sane, like Ai, and Minami when he wasn’t obsessing about how his hair looked when he and Uozumi left the locker room at the same time...all the time…oh...”

“Samezuka is a powerhouse team after all. They were lucky to have you serve as their captain.”

Rin shakes his head, bringing him back to his main point and not suddenly connecting the dots about his teammates five years later. “But 100% of your team was near certifiably insane. I love them all dearly - don’t you dare tell them that -”

“They already know -”

“- but to take responsibility for a team’s resurrection with Rei, Nagisa, and Haru? You’d have been screwed without Gou, but man, you don’t know how much you do.” 

“Well I worked with the best...both years.”

“You fucking know it.” Rin nudges Makoto’s knee with his own. “And brave, I’ve never told you how brave you are, right? Not just with the water and saving Rei, or teaching _children_ how to swim, but standing up to me when I was an absolute douche and choosing to race Haru…”

An uncomfortable pause.

“I’m glad you decided to try competitive swimming again.”

“Oh.” Makoto looks at his knees, keeps his focus there. “Yeah. I figured it’d build up my credentials when it came to applying for jobs. Don’t think places would be willing to hire someone who only professionally swam in high school.”

“And it has nothing to do with us yelling at you?”

“I think it was just you yelling. Sousuke and Haru were good with the whole ‘firm tone’ thing.”

“It was because you weren’t listening. ‘I’ll never amount to you guys, you don’t need me,’ what the _fuck_. Besides, you were losing muscle.”

Makoto immediately latches onto the change in subject. “Oh, so I see you told me I should go back so I could get back my body.”

Rin squints, but the shadow under his eye indicates that this is a conversation that’ll branch off in the proper direction at a more suitable time of day. “Duh, and I had to wait for that hot body to come back before I could jump on it.”

“So that’s why we started dating? Because you wanted my hot body?”

Makoto laughs when Rin shoves him, tousles Rin’s hair when he regains his balance. 

He notices that Rin doesn’t respond, and in those span of seconds, minutes maybe, Makoto starts to freak out, wondering if it’s actually true, as if the reticent, barely-there buildup of the past ten years was really nothing.

That is, until Rin finally sighs and looks up at the moon. 

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

Makoto doesn’t even notice that his head’s on Rin’s shoulder, his eyes heavy, eyelashes folding against his glasses’ lenses.

“Hmm, Rin, I’m so happy to be dating you. Your hot body’s the least of it.”

He misses Rin’s response, but Makoto retracts his earlier thought. Quiet compliments are an incredible thing on their own.

Makoto smells vanilla, warm as it whispers into his ear and washes over his face, a low, “Makoto, wake up.” 

“Huh? How long have I been asleep?”

Thin, long fingers comb through his hair, pushing back his bangs, and Rin’s other hand points forward and he says, “Just ten minutes. But shh, look.”

Makoto misses most sunrises, after all, who the hell chooses to wake up that ridiculously early whose names aren’t Rin or Sousuke, who Makoto has the misfortune of hearing down the hall back in Tokyo when he shuffles out the door for an early job…

But it’s times like these, when the sky is no longer inked, but are spun with threads pulled from pink roses and sprigs of lavender, rippling blue like the clear, pure blue of the pool before the first swim of the season. 

Rin’s holding Makoto’s hand, he just now notices when they tighten on Rin’s end, and it’s not difficult for Makoto to tear his gaze away from the beautiful sight to the one next to him, made even more beautiful by the fact that Rin doesn’t even know that. 

Makoto sleepily kisses Rin’s bare shoulder, just over one of the cherry blossoms, and Rin finally looks at him, asks, “Should we head back?”

“I. Yeah. Can we?” 

The park is closer to Rin’s house than Makoto expected, and he’s the first to shuffle up the stairs, jump into the bed, kicks his jeans off and sighs into the cool pillow as it hits his face, the comforter under him shuffled just so, nearly still in the same setup that it was in when they left.

There’s a tug under him as Rin adjusts the comforter, settles in next to, so close to Makoto, and his gaze is nowhere close to how weary Makoto’s must be, but his eyes are slowly closing just the same.

“You do realize we’re getting up in a half hour to go jogging, right?”

“Noooooo.” Makoto whines, digging his cheek further into the pillow.

Rin laughs. “C’mon, I’m kidding.”

Makoto squeezes his eyes tighter shut when the slide of thick plastic is pulled away from his face, the barely-there clank of the arms of his glasses folding on top of each other when Rin places them on the bedside table. Rin kisses the side of Makoto’s face closest to him, the patch of skin between eye and temple still warm from the glasses’ arm, warmer so under Rin’s lips.

“What time is it?” Makoto muffles.

“Hmmm. Nearly 6AM. 5:58. Officially sunrise, I think.”

“So earlyyyyy.”

“It’s fine. We don’t have to meet up with Sousuke and Haru until the afternoon. I’ll make you coffee when we wake up, okay?”

Makoto’s response is a mumble back, and Rin kisses his cheek this time, tucks the blanket around Makoto before tucking his chin on Makoto’s shoulder and slowly traces his finger up and down Makoto’s chest, still clothed in Rin’s jacket.

Three and a half hours. Almost four hours of moments of Rin, and him, and memories that can only be shared between the two of them.

He wonders how much of those he can collect, treasure in a chest before it starts to pour over and he must part with some against his will, which no doubt will be soon.

Because it’s been building since he was twelve, has increased exponentially since he was seventeen, even more so in the past year and even more in the past eight days. It’ll continue to grow with each coming year, which will become years, and they’ll have elements of now, of ten years ago, and ones that have yet to come.

And Makoto will make sure to keep expanding that chest, refusing to part with any of them and fight back for once, because that treasure is gold, and the sky is gold, and Rin is gold, and Makoto may never amount to be anything above bronze, so he’ll make it his goal to hold onto as much of that metallic victory as he can.

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao Rin never got to eat his snacks, oops.
> 
> I would also like to apologize here for shoehorning in my headcanons for Makoto post ES, but I refuse to let go of the idea that a group that included Sousuke and Haru and was led by Rin sat Makoto down and told him, one-by-one, in their own way, "I'm glad you made this decision for your future, but if you think you aren't worth continuing swimming for your own sake, you're a fucking idiot."
> 
> I'd love to write about that, but alas, we'll tuck that away for now on the "what could be ficced" shelf.


End file.
